Best of PRO This Week: UP Traffic, New Spanish Director General & Data Behind Milestone Promos

Key Takeaways

Six Weeks of Online Poker in Nevada: Traffic of Ultimate Poker.
Mile-high Spikes: The Data Behind PokerStars’ Milestone Promotions.

Lead Features

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Six Weeks of Online Poker in Nevada: Traffic of Ultimate Poker

Slow but steady growth in Nevada’s first online poker room as it remains the sole provider in the space. Now well into its second month online, Ultimate Poker continues to see steady growth in its cash game traffic.

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Mile-high Spikes: The Data Behind PokerStars’ Milestone Promotions

PokerStars’ 100 billion hands promotion is the most expensive in online poker in recent history, and it concludes this week. The first milestone hand has been hit: the traffic surge has already begun.

Exclusive News Articles

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Spanish Regulator Gets a New Director General

Carlos Hernández Riera to be new Director General DGOJ After a month without a boss, Spanish regulators finally have a name to put at the top of their organizational charts—Carlos Hernández Riera, the former deputy has been promoted to Director General of the Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego.

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PokerStars Appeals Atlantic City Rejection

PokerStars’ campaign to get US market access continues, as Rational Group has filed an appeal of the court ruling that terminated a restraining order blocking the sale of the Atlantic Club Casino in New Jersey to another buyer.

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Alderney Regulator Teams Up With Spectrum Gaming Group

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) has formed a commercial joint venture with Spectrum Gaming Group to provide advice to other regulators worldwide. The project reinforces the AGCC’s free market approach to regulation which stands in contrast to the statist perspective more common in the EU.

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Big Euro Names Head Bulgaria’s Online Gambling Blacklist

Bet365, Ladbrokes, Betfair and 888 among the 20 ordered to cease activity in the country. The Bulgarian State Gambling Commission (SGC) has started to impose itself by listing 20 websites on its first edition blacklist.

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PokerStars Reaches Annual High Thanks to Milestone Promotion

The seven-day moving average of cash game players on PokerStars will reach the highest point in a year, and will rise to pre-Black Friday traffic levels, thanks to the 100 billion hand promotion.

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Spanish National Gambling Commission to be Formally Dissolved

The Spanish National Gaming Commission (CNJ), has been formally dissolved. Its demise was anticipated and does not signify any change in online gaming policy.

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Resurgent Neteller Adds its Sponsorship to the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour

The PokerStars.it Italian Poker Tour (IPT) has gained a new sponsor in Neteller. The brand is part of the Optimal Payments group, which provides both branded and white label payment processing services.

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Swiss Government Offended by Use of Federal Symbols on bwin.party Casino Site

On Friday, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) took the unusual step of issuing an official warning notice on its website about scasino.com. The gambling site is a brand of Global Gaming Net, a subsidiary of bwin.party.

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Mobile Poker Play in France Sees Strong Growth

27% of all players have played more than once from a phone or tablet. In the last three months of 2012, more than one in four online poker players in France played at least twice on their mobile phone or tablet.

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Spanish Government Considers Smoking Ban Exemption for EuroVegas

Las Vegas entrepreneur Sheldon Adelson has won major concessions from the Spanish national and regional government in their enthusiasm for his EuroVegas mega project, and now it is looking probable that they will change their smoking laws to accommodate his needs.

Regular Weekly Columns

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